Recline into Shape: A Resource Guide to Crossfit

What is CrossFit?

CrossFit is known as a conditioning and a strength brand that combines a multitude of disciplines. These disciplines are gymnastics, sprinting, weightlifting, kettlebell training, powerlifting, rowing, plyometrics, and even medicine ball training. There is a belief system behind the CrossFit brand. This belief system comes down to the principle that a fit and healthy man or woman needs proficiency in 10 skills. These skills are accuracy, coordination, balance, agility, speed, power, flexibility, strength, stamina and endurance. It is a program that was founded by Lauren Glassman and Greg Glassman, a former high-school gymnast.

The CrossFit brand defines fitness as work capacity that is heightened across the 10 domains of accuracy, coordination, balance, agility, speed, power, flexibility, strength, stamina and endurance. CrossFit asserts that it promotes this by stimulating both hormonal and neurological adaptations over whole metabolic pathways. Athletes who practice CrossFit can climb and jump rope, lift odd objects and row. Using both weightlifting as well as powerlifting techniques, athletes who practice CrossFit can move big loads efficiently over moderate distances. Some equipment and tools that CrossFit athletes use include dumbbells, kettlebells, pull-up bars and gymnastic rings. This program is already utilized by up to 2000 gyms across the globe, and even a few police departments, military organizations and fire departments have used the CrossFit program.

Nutrition: The Paleo Diet

The Paleo diet is short for the Paleolithic diet, which is also called the caveman diet, the hunter-gatherer diet and even the Stone Age diet. This nutritional diet is based upon the assumed, ancient diet that consisted of wild plants and even animals that many human species constantly ate during the Paleolithic era. The Paleo diet these days consists mostly of pasture-raised and grass-fed meats, vegetables, fish, nuts, roots, fruits, legumes, grains, salt, dairy products, processed oils and refined sugars. The basic principle of this diet is that it consists of foods that can only be either hunted or gathered, which means that foods such as fish, fruit, insects, eggs, seafood and meat are included in this diet. Practitioners of this diet think that people should get between 56 and 65 percent of their food energy from animal foods and only between 36 and 45 percent of their food energy from plant foods.

CrossFit Exercises

The exercises in CrossFit are based on the principles that each person should have the capability of balancing various levels of activity and also performing satisfactorily at any given task. The exercises for CrossFit are designed to promote and to defend these kinds of principles in the CrossFit philosophy. The exercises in CrossFit can be traditional, such as gym-based exercises like drills, running, calisthenics and lifting, or they might even be anti-traditional like carrying weird-shaped items, pulling along weighted sleds, or even flipping tires. The kinds of exercises that CrossFit features in its program are tailored to each individual so that everyone at different levels of fitness can productively take part in a CrossFit program. For example, participants who lift only 20 pounds versus those who are so advanced that they can lift 130 pounds can identify with each other, based on the principle behind how each person tries to execute the exercise.

CrossFit Competitions

CrossFit competitions are this fitness brand’s way of determining who the fittest person on Earth is, at least based only on the people that are active participants in the CrossFit program. The competitions can best be defined as multi-stage trials that are based on a grueling work ethic and courses. The trick behind these competitions is that the competitors have absolutely no idea what awaits them: Each and every year, CrossFit actually changes the events from the previous year, so competitors have to be reasonably fit enough that they are ready to take on practically anything. In any given CrossFit competition, participants can expect lengthy endurance races, gymnastic ring handstands/pushups, scaling walls, weightlifting, sandbag running and other tests or endurance and strength. CrossFit competitions are open to contestants from across the whole world, and contestants qualify for the event simply by sending in a home video of themselves performing some feat of CrossFit strength. If accepted, they then participate in the CrossFit competition finals, which are usually held around the late part of July.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is a WOD?
A: WOD stands for “Workout of the Day.”

Q: What is the official warmup for CrossFit?
A: The official warmup for CrossFit consists of three rounds of up to 15 repetitions of the Samson Stretch, the overhead squat with an accompanying broomstick, the back extension, the sit-up, the dip and the pull-up.

Q: What is the meaning of pood?
A: The pood is a Russian measure for kettlebells.

Q: What is a hook grip?
A: The hook grip is when one wraps his or her hand around the bar while grabbing as much of one’s thumb with the first two fingers as possible.

Q: What is a Tabata?
A: A Tabata is doing 20 seconds worth of repetitions for the assigned exercise, then resting for 10 seconds.

Q: What is a Farmer’s Walk?
A: A Farmer’s Walk is lifting two dumbbells that are heavy and walking for a certain distance.

Q: What is a Waiter’s Walk?
A: A Waiter’s Walk is when one holds a weight over his or her head and then walks for a certain distance.

Q: What is a Samson Stretch?
A: A Samson Stretch is when one interlaces his or her fingers and raises them overhead so one’s palms are towards the ceiling. The Stretch occurs when one lifts with his or her shoulders.

Q: What is the wallball target height?
A: The standard height of the wallball target is 10 feet.

Q: What makes a suitable substitute for running?
A: A suitable substitute for running can be box-stepping, stair-climbing, dumbbell or kettlebell swings, heavy bag work, cross-country skiing and box jumps.

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